Baby, You Can Drive My Car
by Sara Jaye
Summary: Modern day AU. In which Hector's car is a piece of junk, Farina is the only one who can save it and Uther is suspicious.


Adam Sandler sang about how much his car sucked, but Adam Sandler's car was a dream machine compared to the hunk of useless _I_ got saddled with.

Hi, I'm Hector Ostia. I'm seventeen, I'm a senior in high school, and my brother's a lying bastard. See, the reason my car's a piece of junk is because it's older than dirt. It used to be Dad's, then my brother drove it until our stepdad gave him _his_ old car. Uther told me Dad's old Chevy'd last me at least another four years, but it's been six months and if my friend Lyn hadn't convinced me to take one last shot at fixing it I'd have it mounted on cinderblocks in the backyard. (I know, but I can't just sell something that belonged to Dad. Uther'd clobber me for it.)

Sadly, I can't afford a real mechanic right now so I'm stuck putting an ad on the school website. I feel like a doofus, but it's all I can do. Sometimes I wish Eliwood took auto shop instead of carpentry, I could afford him. He fixes my car, I buy him a pizza, we'd be even.

Today, someone left me a text saying they'd be glad to take a look at the car. So I went to the abandoned auto yard like they said, and half an hour later this girl in dirty coveralls and an oversized baseball cap showed up.

"Well, fancy running into you here, Hector Ostia!"

"What the-_you're_ the best mechanic in all of Lyciabrook?!" Farina Wingspear and I had a couple classes together and we'd gotten into a couple arguments, but I had no idea who she was or what she was into outside of that. "Is this some kind of prank?" She yanked off her cap and narrowed her eyes at me.

"You saying a girl can't be good with cars?"

"No, of course not! But you and your sisters work at a horse farm, you don't even _have_ a car. I figured you were some sort of car-hating hippie." Obviously she wasn't, I realized as I stared at her coveralls. They were stained beyond stained, you could hardly tell they'd used to be _blue_ aside from a few patches here and there. "So you're the one who's gonna save my crappy car from the brink?"

"Remember Mrs. Reglay's crummy old jalopy?" Farina smirked. "If not for me, she'd still be looking for something new! And at least yours still has the right front door still on, so this should be easy enough. Just let me get a good look at it."

"Sure. You just go get the other guys-er, girls-er, mechanics to help you out?" She rolled her eyes.

"I work alone," she said. I shrugged and sat down on a nearby stack of tires and watched her examine every inch of my car. She'd shake her head now and then and mumble something and halfway through I started to worry. What if mine was the only car she couldn't fix? What if I'd come out here and wasted half an hour for nothing? What if-

"Oh, this is nothing." She popped her head up from under the hood and smirked. "You just need a new engine, new paint job, the radiator needs flushing, maybe an oil change-"

"You call that nothing?!"

"Well yeah, if you needed a new transmission you'd be screwed," she said. "This is just a bunch of little stuff compared to that, I can have it all done in a week tops." Was she for real? This smartass girl, working alone, could fix an entire car in just one week? Yeah, something about this just didn't add up.

"You sure you're working alone here? I mean, even the pros have all kinds of guys doing all the different jobs."

"Yeah, and that's why the pros aint rich." She smirked. "So, how much you you gonna pay me?"

"Um, Farina, you did read my ad, right? I can't really afford to pay _anyone_. Your ad didn't say a thing about money, that's why I went to you."

"Oh, I never advertise prices. I usually get paid on a case by case basis," Farina said. "Mrs. Reglay got a special teacher discount, but any guy who screws up his car with stupid stunts or drunk driving pays out the nose. And of course, custom paint jobs and interior cleaning cost extra. So does me having to order parts the shop doesn't have."

"Boy." I shook my head. "You've got this all figured out, don't you. I didn't know they were teaching business classes at school."

"They're not. I went online and researched this stuff, talked to my grandpa who used to work at a garage, did a whole lot of price figuring. My older sister wishes I paid this much attention to my history homework!" Farina grinned. "Don't worry, kid. You're car'll be good as new by the time I'm done with it!"

All I could do was nod.

"So, about my payment-"

"Can I get back to you? I need time to scrape together some money and see if I can borrow a little from Eliwood." I felt bad having to ask Eliwood for money, but I rarely did and I always paid him back. Farina seemed to think for a moment before she nodded.

"Sure, take a few days. As long as I get paid, doesn't matter how long I've gotta wait!"

And so I walked home that day, leaving my crappy car in the hands of a girl I barely knew and wasn't sure I trusted. Oh, well, if worse came to worse I'd just have to rent a car until I could afford a real mechanic.

-x-

I emptied my savings jar. I searched my pockets for dimes and dollars. I washed dishes in the cafeteria. I walked dogs. I did every humiliating odd job a man could until Uther felt so sorry for me that he decided to come down to the yard and have a talk with Farina.

Between his current paycheck and the two-hundred bucks I'd scraped together, we had five-hundred sixteen dollars. That wasn't even enough for half a normal car.

"I only hope she actually does good work," Uther said. "Really, Hector, you should've known better than to advertise for a mechanic on the internet. You could've-"

"Would you cut that out? We're past the age of Everyone On The Internet Wants To Rob You Or Worse," I said, rolling my eyes. "And what else was I gonna do, beg you or Oswin for money? That's not what a man does, and let's be real. Would either of you have given me the money without a lecture on how irresponsible I am?" Uther opened his mouth to protest, but closed it; he knew I was right.

"Fine, then next time your car breaks down I'll help you buy a new one."

"Won't need it. Farina says she can get the job done so that I'll never need it fixed again." We pulled into the yard and she was waiting for us, a smear of grease on her left cheek and her cap perched sloppily on one side of her head. Uther grinned.

"She's a cute one. Now I can see why you were so eager to come here," he teased. _Cute? Farina?_ I gave him a dirty look as I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car.

"Let's just get my car back and get out of here, okay?"

"Miss Farina." He approached her, and Farina smiled.

"Oh, this must be the brother! I've heard Hector mention you around school a few times," she said. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Ostia. I take it Hector's told you all about my flawless services and fair prices?"

"Listen, you-" I started, but Uther cut me off.

"He tells me you didn't give him an estimate right away," he said. "That you charge on a case by case basis. I practically had to pry the information out of him, he was so secretive I assumed you might be running a shady business."

"_Uther!_" I jabbed him hard in the ribs. He was treating me like a little kid, now Farina was gonna think I was a total feeb! _Wait, what?_ Since when did I care what she thought? Sure, I don't like people messing around with my manly image, but suddenly Farina's opinion mattered to me and I didn't like that feeling. "Look, Farina, just give me the bill and I'll pay you and get outta here." To my chagrin, she gave me a sympathetic look.

"Your brother's just like Fiora," she laughed. "Always treating me like a kid. Okay, Mr. Ostia, Hector's car just needed some maintenence, nothing major. Now, let's see..." She whipped out a calculator and started muttering some stuff about hours and labor and parts and flushes and paint and things, then turned the machine to us. "There we go! Theoretically, this'd run Hector about five hundred bucks. But since you both seem like nice guys, I'll haggle with ya."

Was she serious? Five hundred was about what I expected, but haggling? Was she aiming for more, or was she actually willing to knock the price down? Uther stepped back, _finally_, and left me alone with Farina.

"Can I see my car first? And try it out before I actually pay you?"

"You mean you don't trust me? I'm a little hurt!"

"Oh, come on!" Farina sighed heavily, then led me into the garage where my car waited. It _looked_ brand new, and when I got in and sat down that spring wasn't poking me in the leg again. Finally, I started her up and the engine sounded like an engine _should._

"You sure this is my car?" I asked dumbly. I'd come here with a piece of junk waiting to fall apart, and in its place was an old but perfectly stable machine. There was no denying she'd done a hell of a job, it didn't even seem that old anymore. I shut off the ignition and looked up, and she smiled smugly at me.

"Well?"

"Okay, you really came through for me," I said. "So how about four hundred?"

"Hmm..." She pressed her lips together. "Four-ninety."

"Four-eighty."

"Four-seventy five, and that's my final offer." And I had to admit that did sound reasonable, so I counted out the amount from the pile of mine and Uther's money and handed it to her. Farina smiled, printed out my receipt and I led her back over to where Uther stood waiting.

"Well?" He was _smiling._ "How did you two make out?" Farina turned red for a moment, glared at me, and then plastered on a big smile for my brother.

"We agreed that four-hundred seventy-five seemed like a fair amount. I do tend to work miracles, after all, and a job like this would normally cost more, but...well, Hector here drives a fair bargain." She smirked, and Uther laughed.

"Somehow I had a feeling this would work out," he said. _Sure you did, Mr. Suspicious._

"Well, I've got my car back so I'll drive home alone. You can go if you want," I said. Uther winked, and I was all too aware of Farina's body so close to mine and our hands almost touching and that stupid _smirk._ No way, I thought. She's crazy, there's no possible way...

"I understand," Uther said. "I need to get back to my paperwork, anyway. Hector, you try to be home at a decent hour, and call me if you'll be late." He got into his car and drove off before I could respond, and left me alone with her. Again.

We stared at each other like a couple of idiot middle school kids. Okay, maybe she was kind of pretty in a messy sort of way. And she knew what having a stern older sibling was like. And she was into cars.

And maybe having her so close wasn't such a bad thing.

"So..."

"Wanna go for pizza?" she asked. "I'll buy, since you've gotta be cleaned out after all that. Unless you've got a problem with a girl paying for dinner." I almost did, but then I realized she was offering me free food. What kind of idiot complains about _that_?

"Sounds great."

So we got into my car, drove off down the road, and I decided advertising for a mechanic on the internet was the best crazy thing I'd ever done.

Of course, next time I was gonna pay for the pizza. It was only fair.


End file.
